Report: Ivins may have targeted Daschle

HARTFORD, Conn., Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Before receiving an anthrax-laced letter in 2001, then U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle had complained about the Army's anthrax vaccine, the Hartford Courant said.

The newspaper obtained a copy of a letter sent from the former Senate Majority Leader from South Dakota to former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld voicing the concerns of Connecticut National Guard members about the safety of the anthrax vaccine the military was giving soldiers in Iraq.

Sources say Daschle's complaint may have drawn the ire of biodefense scientist Bruce Ivins, who allegedly committed suicide last month as the FBI was moving to arrest him as the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17 others.

The Courant said it has learned Ivins might have had access to Daschle's letter, or at least may have been aware of its potential chilling effect on the vaccine program he was involved with, as a member of a panel convened to study the vaccine's effectiveness.

NBC News reported Ivins, one of the U.S. Army's lead scientists on the anthrax vaccine, had been angered by suggestions that it made recipients ill.